Chapter 9
“Shade, this family needs all the help it can get. You are part of this family. Therefore, should this family fall, so will you. You cannot deny your heritage forever; looks are only skin deep. Remember that net time you try to refuse a task.”
“Yes, grandmother.” Shade bowed her head respectfully and waited to be dismissed.
“I have great faith in you, my dear. I believe that what happened between your grandfather and I was a mistake. Nevertheless, it brought me great joy in the form of your mother, and now in you. I know you’ll do us proud, my dear. Sade, never forget who you are. You are very special, and nothing will change that. Your cousin needs you desperately, and it’s up to you to clear the path for her.” Emelda Marrick rose from her chair and made her way, across the dais on which it sat, towards her favourite grandchild.
“If it were my choice, you’d be the one to take my place. Unfortunately, your cousin was born but a day before you. In my heart, though, you will always be my heir. You have inherited so much from me, from our ancestors, as it is. Perhaps one day it will be sufficient enough to award you your rightful place. Until then, my dear, go to this humanoid, this unknown, and show her our species is not as dark and demented as the dimensions have deluded themselves into believing.”
With a final pat on her left shoulder, Shade rose from her knees to bend back into a final bow before her grandmother. A warm smile was exchanged between them as Shade stepped back and off the dais. A couple long strides brought her to the giant rosewood doors that were the entrance to her grandmother’s receiving room. Guests, thousands or millions of them, had graced these very halls over the many centuries since its construction. Centuries before it there were luscious gardens that stretched beyond the horizon all around the castle. Just as the colour and life of those gardens had withered, so had the castle itself and all of its inhabitants withered too.
Shade longed to see this castle return to the glory depicted in the many portraits that graced the walls of the endless hallways that wound themselves around and around inside the dark interior. The exterior was a dark smudge of the grand light it had once been. She knew that she had the power to change that. She knew it was her duty to do so. After all, this was her heritage, this was her family, and she owed it to them as well as to herself to do whatever she could to restore their standing in all societies, to restore the family name.
~*~
“Mirah, I am not sure I can trust her.” Mirah watched as her best friend, her saviour, paced back and forth across the carpeted floor. It would seem she’d worn a path in the plush blue-hued Persian.
“Do not worry. I can make sure that Nixie is not persuaded away from you in any way. Perhaps you should consider introducing yourself.”
“Like this?! Can you imagine what she’d think if she saw this coming down the street towards her?! Gah!” Mirah sighed dramatically and shook her head. The pacing sped up and the ranting grew louder and louder with each step.
“Would you just shut up, it’ll be fine. Gosh. Sometimes I wonder if you see yourself properly.”
“Mirah, I don’t need to see myself properly, I need her to not see me.” The tiniest tear slipped down her cheek and she turned from her friend as she wiped it away.
“She already knows you. She just needs her memory to be refreshed.”
“Exactly! She knows what a demented freak I am. How can I expect her to like me; she’s so perfect.”
“Nobody is perfect, doll, and you better remember that. You’re an amazing person and you deserve her, because she wouldn’t be your mate if you didn’t. Just go see her.”
“I can’t just pitch up and be like: ‘Hey, you don’t know me, but I’m the person you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with and we’re going to have a whole bunch of babies and grow really, really old together until we die. Will you marry me?’”
“Oh, really? Yes, yes, yes! Where’s the ring?” Mirah looked all indignant and affronted at her best friend. They stayed silent for about two minutes before bursting into fits of laughter.
“You really think I should?”
“Yes, I do. Maybe not in that way though, but you should definitely start courting her.”
“She’s just so beautiful.” Mirah smiled at the dreamy and contented look that had consumed her friend’s face, just as it had her heart.
“It’s okay to be scared. Besides, you’re not too shabby yourself.” Mirah winked and gave her friend a quick hug. “You guys are going to be so cute together!” The answering blush was an obvious indication that she’d successfully convinced miss bashful to take the figurative plunge.
Shoes. Thousands, and thousands of shoes. Shoes of every colour, every shape, and size. It was her heaven. She wasn’t exactly the ‘girly’ type, but she really had an annoying, and expensive, obsession with shoes. Well, expensive in her eyes anyway. Alona might think she was spending pocket change or something.
As usual the mall was packed like a too-small sardine can. With a coffee in one hand and two packets of new clothes and shoes in the other, Nixie made her way to her favourite shop. There at the end of the upstream battle was the brightly lit, island-style surf and beach shop. Body boarding might be her usual gig, but surfing was her undisclosed passion.
She was browsing through the shop when she noticed an extremely tall glass of her kind of woman walk into the shop. Shapely legs, long red hair and an oddly familiar sway in her walk... yum. Nixie was completely enthralled; until she caught sight of the woman behind her.
A tangle of blond curls almost completely hid her face. Nixie couldn’t help herself, she moved, subconsciously, toward the mystery woman. And she was definitely a woman. Soft curves and milky, white skin… practically edible. She wasn’t tall and overly graceful, neither was she slouched over and clumsy. She… she was the perfect medium, and she changed every thought of what her ‘ideal woman’ was. She didn’t even watch where she was going. She barrelled right into the beautiful woman who’d enchanted her.
“I am so, so, so, sorry! Here let me help you.” Nixie’s hand met her mate’s and she felt the electric sizzle that sparked between them. By the sharp intake of breath by the other woman, she was sure she hadn’t been the only one who’d felt it. “My name’s Nixie, it’s uhm, really nice to meet you. Really, really nice. I truly am so sorry about practically bowling you over like that.”
“Oh please, don’t worry I’m really just fine.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Nixie only realized what she’d said after the words had already left her mouth and begun processing in the beautiful woman before her’s mind. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! “I didn’t mean that.” She saw the hurt look on her face and quickly rephrased. “What I meant to say was, that I didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that.” The unsure look on the woman’s face reminded her of the look you’d find on a self-conscious teenager. “Please, I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” And now I look like a giant tomato… “I just, well, you made me nervous.”
“I understand exactly how you feel.” The warm smile that came over the exquisite creature before her’s face lit up Nixie’s world like firecrackers did the night sky on the fourth of July.
“So what’s your name?”
After a slight hesitation, the answer came.
“Shayden, Shayden Marrick.” Again Nixie’s hand was ensconced in electric shocks as Shayden enfolded Nixie’s hand with her own. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Definitely.” They were beaming from ear to ear when miss red, tall and leggy walked up to them.
“I hate to break this little soirée up, but unfortunately we have some unwanted company approaching.” She rolled her eyes and Nixie watched a she walked away in what was obviously the opposite direction from whomever she didn’t want to be seen by.
“Do you want to come with us? We were just going to get something to snack on in the park.” Shayden looked so nervous and adorable that Nixie couldn’t help but melt right there on the spot.
“Of course, I’d love to.” Nixie was just about to start in the same direction as the leggy redhead when she saw Shade coming towards them out of the corner of her eye. What on Earth is Shade doing here; shouldn’t she be in another dimension or something? Nixie’s thoughts were interrupted by a gentle touch on her hand. She looked down to see that Shayden was pretty much asking permission to hold it. Without hesitation, and all thoughts forgotten, Nixie adjusted her hand to hold Shayden’s more tightly.
~*~
“So, what’s your biggest fear?”
“Being lonely.” Shayden looked so vulnerable, as if she were expecting Nixie to burst out laughing at her any minute.
“Mine too.” Nixie saw first surprise, then wonder, and finally hope shine in Shayden’s eyes.
“You really are perfect.” Shayden said it with such certainty and conviction that Nixie’s laugh was cut dead in its tracks. In Shayden’s eyes she saw the kind of admiration she’d always wanted, the kind of look you see when you’re standing in the deepest, darkest ditch and still feeling on top of the world, just because that someone is with you.
“If I can be perfect, so can you, and you are.”
“I am not.” Shayden looked away.
“To me, you are. You deserve only the best.” Nixie let her finger rest gently on the tip of Shayden’s chin and drew, ever so slightly, her gaze back. She looked into Shayden’s eyes and saw the truth. There was an incredible connection between them, one that ran soul-deep. “You know, I never thought I could find someone who I could relate to on so many different levels, yet have them not be a mirror image of me. Like, I can’t explain it, but you and I” Nixie gestured to herself and Shayden, “we click. Like two halves of a puzzle meeting together.”
“I can’t believe you’re mine.” Shayden’s bright smile, and Nixie’s aversion to diminishing it, were the only things keeping her from saying a big, loud W.T.F.